WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Tuesday moved to limit the damagefrom his summit with Vladimir Putin, claiming he misspoke in appearing toaccept the Russian leader s denial of election meddling — in a rebuke toUS intelligence chiefs.
At their meeting in Helsinki on Monday, Trump failed to challenge Putinover the 2016 presidential election, seeming to accept at face value thestrongman s denial that Moscow interfered in a bid to undermine Democraticcandidate Hillary Clinton.
But faced with outrage at home, with even some of his political alliesdemanding that he reverse course, Trump — in an extraordinary postscriptto the summit — sought to walk back his remarks.
Trump said he accepted the intelligence community s assessment that Russiahad meddled in the election, and offered a rambling explanation of hisassertion that he could not see “any reason” why Russia would interfere.
“In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word would instead of wouldn t ,” Trump said, speaking at the White House ahead of a meetingwith Republican lawmakers.
“The sentence should have been, I don t see any reason why it wouldn t beRussia. Sort of a double negative,” he added — repeating the laboriousclarification several times.
But while the US leader expressed his “full faith and support for America sgreat intelligence agencies,” he insisted that “Russia s actions had noimpact at all on the outcome of the election.”
And he again floated the idea that “other people” could be involved.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer was quick to pounce.
“President Trump tried to squirm away from what he said yesterday. It s 24hours too late, and in the wrong place,” Schumer said.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller s investigation into Russian meddling andpossible collusion with the Trump campaign has increasingly put pressure onthe White House.
The president — who regards the probe as an attack on his legitimacy –has dubbed it a “witch hunt,” and again said Tuesday there were “nocollusion at all.”
But the investigation is progressing, as evidenced by the indictment of 12Russian military intelligence agents on Friday — timing that wasembarrassing ahead of the summit with Putin.
Trump initially sounded a defensive note on Tuesday, insisting his meetingwith Putin had been “even better” than his one last week with traditionalallies NATO — a testy gathering seen as having badly strainedtrans-Atlantic ties.
But the US president found precious little support for his decision not toconfront the Russian leader — on either side of the political aisle.
Former House speaker and longtime Trump ally Newt Gingrich put it bluntly.
“It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected –immediately,” he tweeted as Trump headed home.
By Tuesday afternoon when he faced the cameras, Trump had changed tack.
“We re doing everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in2018,” the president said.
After his remarks, the White House released a fact sheet on how the US is”standing up to Russia s malign activities” — a clear bid to counter thenotion that Trump had been soft on Putin.
Former president Barack Obama appeared to allude to his successor in aspeech in South Africa on Tuesday, blasting “strongman politics” — withoutnaming Trump.
While Trump was not entirely without defenders, the bipartisan consensuswas broadly hostile to his stance in Helsinki — as the top Republican inCongress, House Speaker Paul Ryan made clear at a press conference Tuesdayon Capitol Hill.
“We stand by our NATO allies and all those countries who are facing Russianaggression,” Ryan said. “Vladimir Putin does not share our interests,Vladimir Putin does not share our values.”
“We just conducted a year-long investigation into Russia s interference inour elections. They did interfere in our elections. It s really clear,” hesaid.
“Russia is trying to undermine democracy itself.” – APP/AFP